


frying pans and wandering hands

by artsyspikedhair



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lowercase, Physical Abuse, Repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 07:12:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8277287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artsyspikedhair/pseuds/artsyspikedhair
Summary: rapunzel learned how to use a frying pan at her mother's knee.





	

rapunzel learned how to use a frying pan at her mother's knee. she was young and refused to sing, because her voice hurt and she felt wrong, and no amount of "but don't you love me?" would work on her. a real mother would make her tea or something, but instead, rapunzel got a frying pan to the head. 

she bled a lot at first, and it scared gothel. but it didn't scare her enough to stop. maybe that was why rapunzel would find herself in her mother's bed, crying and unsure how she had gotten there. but there wasn't any blood, her logical mind would remind her, and she shushed it by singing. 

love was never given for free in their household. an "i love you" usually came after a verbal assault from gothel over some mistake, or before rapunzel wanted to ask something she knew was forbidden. she asked a lot, at first, to go outside and see the night sky surround her. but the punishments came in forms of frying pans and mother gothel's bed, the hard and soft forms of a mother's love. rapunzel's head would throb at the first one and her stomach would flip at the second, once she was old enough to realize what was happening. to form concrete memories. 

but home is home, and eventually she stopped asking. she grew old enough to fight back at fourteen, aimed the frying pan at gothel's head, because she was angry and the moms in her books were so much kinder than her own. gothel dragged her that time, tied her up, made it hurt in ways she hadn't before. 

but home is home, and rapunzel grew out of rebellion out of respect, not fear. okay, maybe a little fear. but she had her paints and her chess and pascal, and her mother was trying to protect her. she was ony punished when she was bad, and at eighteen, she was only punished with harsh words, blows at her clumsiness and chubbiness and niavety. 

it is after eugene finds her and she discovers who she truly is, that she learns about the real world. there is literature in the palace, and as future queen, she was allowed to read as much as she wanted. she learned of concussions, which explained the clumsiness. her mom (not mother, never mother, mother was gothel and tower and fear and pain and she never had to go back) was shocked when she told her of the common punishments in her tower, said it was disgraceful and ungodly and she was glad gothel was dead, because if she wasn't, the queen would chop her head off herself. rapunzel felt better, knowing love isn't a contest anymore. 

but there are still nights she dreams of gothel, of her precious tower and her vicious temper. she feels guilty, those times, in choosing eugene over her. it may not have been blood, and it may not have been love,but they were a family for eighteen years. a messed up one, but rapunzel still lives under the expectation that she is lesser than the others. 

but after the wedding, after being united with her parents for a few years, rapunzel realizes gothel was never family. gothel just wanted somone to control. and rapunzel still lives with fear inside her, and will maybe never give eugene a heir, but in the palace, with her real family, she is safe.


End file.
